★ Learning from Bartosz
June 2026 (702 Words, 4 Minutes)
I met Bartosz Przytula at the end of 2020 when I was interviewing for a job at Credera, formerly Smart Digital.
I remember immediately getting a positive impression of him. He knows the things he talks about. He could go into detail on the web tracking solutions that he and his team were implementing at Volkswagen. And he cares deeply about using the precise words to describe these solutions. He also takes notes in Sublime Text, proof that he has good taste.
Bartosz was a big part of why, in 2020, I accepted that job as junior consultant. What I didn’t know yet, is how that decision would change my life.
Bartosz took a 25-year-old-me with not even 2 years of professional experience into his team of consultants. That team of around six people was the highest-functioning team I’ve ever been part of.
Team
At the start there was a steep learning curve for me. Both in terms of technical depth and in management lessons. Especially project management & leadership are the kind of thing you can read about in books or study in Uni but there is nothing like watching highly skilled colleagues performing it: building consensus, communicating clearly, holding everyone accountable, identifying issues and bottlenecks and so on. Getting things done in large companies is a craft. And Bartosz’s team was full of motivated people that had mastered that craft.
In his team there always was a sense of togetherness. The sense that no matter how tough it gets out there, we would be there for each other, helping wherever it’s needed. From Bartosz I always got the sense that if things got really tough, he would be the first to put in extra hours or do whatever it takes, to get us out of a hole. He leads by example.
Feedback
Bartosz would ask for and give feedback. He got the balance of challenging me and supporting me just right. I always got the sense that he believed in me, even when I was doubting myself. A feedback session with Bartosz would give me what George Mack describes as the treadmill energy high agency people provide: If you meet with them when you’re tired and defeated, you leave the room ready to run a marathon on a treadmill with max incline.
Bartosz listened, encouraged me, and pointed out areas where I could improve. His background in psychology showed during those feedback talks. Bartosz is careful to never create the impression that a negative trait is permanent. If I was too shy in a meeting, for example, Bartosz would never say “You are bad with clients” or anything like that. He would express it in a way that gave me agency over it. To suggest that I could change and improve this aspect.
In retrospect, I now think this is crucial if you want to coach colleagues to develop and even grow as people. If someone is convinced that they are bad with clients and that this is an unchangeable thing about them, they are just going to continue to get nervous in meetings with clients. The negative self-image becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it’s an entirely different story if instead they receive the feedback that there are individual aspects about how they present themselves in meetings that can be improved. And then giving them lower-stakes meetings to practice on and tracking their progress.
Self-Efficacy
This next lesson I didn’t appreciate enough, when I took over that team two years later. But I now think it’s absolutely crucial.
There is a sort of collective learned helplessness and cynicism that can grow out of control in work environments. This can ruin a team’s morale. Both the cynicism itself and the underlying causes need to be addressed by a leader.
Bartosz’s leadership style prevented this cynicism from taking root. First, he listened to complaints and took them seriously. He also was honest if he thought that the complaint was not a real problem. If he agreed with you, though, he wasn’t afraid to confront superiors or to do what it takes to fix the problem.
Bartosz’s approach was simple but rare: he gave people a private channel to raise concerns, trusted them to solve things themselves, confronted real problems head-on, and had no tolerance for passive complaining. If you complained in a meeting without having tried anything, he’d ask you directly, in front of everyone, what you’d done about it. You learned quickly.
Realism
I used to think of Bartosz as an optimist because he always believed people and situations could improve. Looking back, I think he’s better described as a realist. He’s helped so many people and teams improve that his confidence isn’t based on wishful thinking, it’s based on experience.
Bartosz and I worked together for a couple of years, for which I’m deeply thankful. In that time he helped me immensely to develop. He helped me trust my own judgement and gave me a reference of how to lead a team. Unfortunately, due to life circumstances, we don’t work together anymore - we don’t even live in the same country anymore. Despite that he remains the standard I hold leadership to. Bartosz is living proof of what a leader should aspire to be.